Pennsylvania Water Systems React To Storm Flooding

Flooding in Pennsylvania last week provided a case study in the severe difficulties water treatment plants can face in storms, including the threat of contamination.

On October 21, “a series of storms hopscotched across western and central Pennsylvania overnight, turning roads into rivers, closing schools and damaging homes in communities as far as 150 miles apart,” ABC News reported. The flooding took at least one life, according to the Pocono Record.

The storms threatened three water systems with contamination and took one water treatment plant offline after a gasoline pipeline burst.

Pennsylvania American Water shut down “its plant along the Susquehanna River in Milton after state environmental officials warned a gasoline plume was nearing the vicinity,” ABC News reported. The company asked customers to conserve water when it became clear the pipeline had burst, but they later lifted the request. Officials redirected water from another treatment plant to customers affected by the plant shutdown.

Company officials reopened the plant a day later after testing its supply, according to PA Homepage.

“The company maintains there is nothing wrong with the water quality in the Susquehanna River at this time. But Sunoco Logistics is working closely with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and federal agencies to clean up the spill,” the report said.

The Sunoco Logistics pipeline had spilled nearly 55,000 gallons of gas “into a tributary of the Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming County,” ABC News reported. A Pennsylvania American Water treatment plant sits downstream of the spill, and the company took its plant offline.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection indicated that three water systems were threatened by the spill, the report said. The borough of Shamokin Dam “closed its intake as a precaution,” the report said, citing environmental regulators.

State and federal officials responded to the gasoline spill. State officials say sampling “continues downstream in the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg. The only sampling that found high levels of gasoline was near the break in the Loyalsock Creek,” NPR’s StateImpact reported.

“Officials speculate that the flood waters that likely caused the pipeline rupture were so heavy, that the leaked fuel was quickly diluted as it flowed downstream,” the report said.

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